


Happy Hour

by callmeonetrack



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Drinking, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:21:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9315254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeonetrack/pseuds/callmeonetrack
Summary: On New Caprica, Kara and Laura get drunk together and mope over their love lives.





	

It was after sunset as Laura Roslin strolled through the marketplace and caught sight of a familiar face at one of the communal tables set up near the bandstand. The days were busy and the nights were long on New Caprica, and sometimes it was hard to believe the groundbreaking had been just three months ago.

The little tent city they’d erected had blossomed into a fuller village. In addition to the marketplace, there was a temple and Laura’s “schoolroom”—still only glorified tents themselves, but plans had been drawn up to build simple structures in the months before winter would hit. It was already turning unseasonably cold.

Had Laura been in charge she would have issued an executive order that those structures be completed before the bar and the full-size pyramid court. But no one had called her Madame President for a very long time.

Sighing, she shifted her sack of groceries. Well grocery. Oddly enough the New Caprican soil seemed to be the ideal place to grow celery—and not much else. Some days Laura thought she might sell her soul for a jar of peanut butter. Redirecting her attention, she walked to the small cluster of tables and chairs, deserted save for one very drunk Kara Thrace.

Slumped in her chair, cradling a bottle in one hand and a half empty glass in the other, the former pilot looked up as Laura settled her bag on the table and dropped down into the seat across from her. Laura caught a look of undescribable emotion in her eyes before the young woman nodded stiffly at her and mustered up an overly bright smile. “Madame President.”

Laura could laugh at the irony. Although this wasn’t the voice she longed to hear say that title again, it still felt damn good. “Just Laura, Cap—Kara.”

Kara flinched then chuckled roughly at the slip and downed the rest of the green fluid in her glass. “Came to join my party, sir?”

This time she didn’t bother to correct her. “That depends,” she settled back in her uncomfortable metal chair carefully, and lifted her feet up to rest on a vacant seat beside her. “Is that real ambrosia?”

The blonde grinned wickedly, and raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. “Bet your ass it is. Won it in the last pyramid tourney against a bunch of civvies who were stupid enough to be starstruck by the famous Samuel T. Anders and—” she cut off abruptly as if changing her mind and the grin slipped for just a second before she continued brighter and harder than before “... his wife.”

More than a trace of bitterness seeped through the end of her sentence, but Kara didn’t comment further. The silence was heavy for a moment and Laura tried to fill it. “So where is Samuel tonight?”

Kara squared her shoulders and sat up straighter pulling the glass towards her and filling it halfway. She didn’t look up as she answered, “Don’t know, don’t particularly care.” Kara slid the glass across the table.

“The night is young, Laura.” She stilled as if trying the name on for size, then looked back at the former head of the 12 colonies. “Drink with me.”

Laura Roslin didn’t drink alcohol really. She never indulged in more than a glass or two of the celebratory glass of champagne at the government functions she’d attended. But that was another life, and tonight, well, tonight was a night for breaking rules. She lifted the glass and smiled at Kara. “What shall we drink to?”

Kara opened her mouth but no sounds came out and she shut it. She tried again, but again nothing. Laura tried herself to come up with something, but every potential toast sounded...well, like something she’d say in a press briefing. If she still had press briefings that is. It was one of the few things she didn’t miss these days. Laura was no longer obliged to do anything or say anything or be anyone but herself.

She raised her glass. “To...civilians."

Kara caught her eye with a look of understanding and nodded. They were both civilians now.

The younger woman took a long drag off the bottle. Her turn. She tapped a finger against the table, her eyes darting over their surroundings. They lit upon the bag of groceries at Laura’s elbow and glittered with mirth. “To a lifetime supply of the blandest vegetable in the universe!”

Laura snickered and Kara started laughing in response, her usual loud full-bodied cackling that Laura had always envied. That was all it took to break the slightly melancholy mood of the evening. They took turns toasting and the giggles intensified, their salutes ranging from the silly to the absurd.

“To Jake the dog!”

“To long underwear.”

“To _three layers_ of long underwear.”

“To dirt...frakking EVERYWHERE!”

Time passed, marked only by the dwindling level of alcohol in the bottle. Her shoes kicked off and her glasses resting on her head, Laura was feeling more relaxed than she could remember since...well, since the night with Bill. A groundbreaking night in more ways than one. She tried not to think of that evening very often these days, recognizing the futility in nostalgia.

But it was harder to accomplish some nights than others. With half a bottle of Caprican ambrosia rushing pleasantly through her bloodstream, tonight it was impossible. She threw her head back and looked up at the clear dark sky. It was funny how the stars she’d spent so many, many nights looking at through the windows of Colonial One seemed no different down here on solid ground. No closer surely, but no farther away either.

Laura had long ago stopped looking for the hazy outline of Galactica’s hulking exterior in the sky. Logically, she understood that the battlestar would not break atmosphere. But occasionally she searched the skies for trace of a raptor’s taillights. She tried not to be disappointed when she never saw them. Peacetime or not, it wasn’t like the admiral of the fleet—meager as it was—could take a night off.

She raised her head again and looked across the table at Kara. She was shocked to see the girl—incongruously Laura couldn’t help but think of the former fiercest pilot in the fleet that way—in much the same posture. Her head was back and her eyes were wide and unguarded for once, watching the stars with a hunger so intense it was nearly tangible.

Afterwards, she wasn’t sure what made her say it. It could have been the ambrosia, but it was more likely that look, a look Laura was sure she’d worn herself in her own weaker moments.

Reaching over for the bottle in front of Kara, Laura topped off her own glass, and slid the bottle back across the table. Kara tilted her head and watched her, expressionless. Laura raised her glass. “To the Colonial fleet.”

Kara’s eyes lowered, but she lifted the bottle and echoed “To the fleet” before she drank. She swallowed hard, then shot Laura a measuring look. She poured her another shot and raised the bottle.

Kara spoke slowly and deliberately, her eyes fixed on Laura’s with a steely determination. “To stubborn…difficult… and damned infuriating men,” she paused dramatically, “named Adama.”

Laura raised her eyebrows in surprise. Then she laughed. A short giddy sound made of relief and shock and other emotions that she couldn’t express in words. She covered her mouth to stifle it and a detached part of her realized that she was very drunk. She’d been sipping her shots all night, while Kara glugged from the bottle after each toast and Laura was sure she’d imbibed far less than her companion. She hadn’t quite put together that “far less than Kara Thrace drank” was not a fair measuring tool, and still far, far more than Laura had drunk in any one sitting before and perhaps more than in the entirety of her lifetime.

In for a cubit, in for a cup, she figured and lifted her glass, downing it all at once this time. Then she clunked it back down in front of Kara expectantly. “That particular toast deserves two shots my dear.”

It was Kara’s turn to laugh, but she gamely poured Laura another shot amidst her giggles. When Laura threw that one back as well, the giggles turned into cackling, which turned into coughing that spluttered into silence.

Now that Kara had spoken it out loud Laura was unable to ignore the memories that kept pulling her back to that night. That one perfect impossible night. She quietly poured herself just a bit more from the nearly empty bottle. Almost to herself, she murmured “To cabins in the woods.”

As she took a sip, she heard Kara exhale loudly as if someone had punched her hard in the stomach. Laura looked at the girl, who was perched stiffly on the edge of her chair. Her breath whistling out through clenched teeth, lips and eyes shiny in the dark night. The expression on her face was excruciating and Laura couldn’t tear her gaze away, though she felt slightly ashamed, as if she was somehow witnessing some incredibly private act.

Laura was about to ask if she was alright, although she couldn’t imagine why her stupidly nostalgic comment about a house in the woods would mean anything to anyone but herself and a certain admiral, but Kara closed her eyes. She whipped her head hard from side to side as if she was shaking something particularly clingy off and then snapped her eyes open again.

Seeing Laura watching her, she flashed her a quick, almost manic grin. The hard brightness was back in her eyes and Laura watched her nostrils flare slightly and shoulders rise as she sucked in a deep breath. Her hand reached for the bottle once more and she tilted it to top off Laura’s glass for the last time. Only a mouthful remained and Kara raised the bottle.

“Last call.” She smiled again, but it didn’t reach her eyes, which were fixated on some point in the distance.

“To New Caprica,” Kara said, in overly loud tones that rang out through the silent night. She didn’t drink, but blinked instead, and like that, the hollow smile fell away as if it were too much effort to sustain. Kara’s eyes, wide and wounded, returned to Laura and the former president wondered if she’d ever seen a look so raw and regretful before in her life.

Kara hitched the bottle a little higher and nearly whispered her final toast.

“To settling.”


End file.
